BrothersJudd.com

Home | Reviews | Blog | Daily | Glossary | Orrin's Stuff | Email

Crescent Dawn ()


By himself, he wrote 17 Dirk Pitt novels, starting with The Mediterranean Caper in 1973. About 15 years ago, Cussler says, his then-publisher, Simon and Schuster, suggested working with coauthors to publish more frequently. If some dismiss that as an assembly-line approach to commercial fiction, Cussler “doesn’t give a damn. I never had a highfalutin view of what I write. It’s a job. I entertain my readers. I get up in the morning and I start typing.”
    -PROFILE: Non Stop Adventure: Clive Cussler (Bob Minzesheimer, Feb 26, 2015, Publishers Weekly)
The story of how I became such a voracious reader is probably not unfamiliar to folks (especially men) my age. Of course your parents and grandparents read you books and you got piles out of the local library. In grade school you raced classmates to see who could finish the SRAs first. You begged money from your parents when the Book Fair came to school. You got started on comic books--back then they were a nickel or a dime--and that got you acclimated to reading series fiction: Encyclopedia Brown, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc. By the late 60s some of the great pulp fictions were being reprinted--Doc Savage, The Avenger, The Shadow--and they were super cheap. When we were moving out of the ghetto (East Orange, NJ) I had to take public transportation home from the next town over, so the Mother Judd would give me a dollar every day. But then I figured out that if I walked I could buy two Doc Savage's on the way. Google Maps says I was walking 5 miles for those books, but it was well worth it.

It is no surprise to discover that the just deceased modern pulp writer Clive Cussler was a fan of Doc too, nor that his main hero, Dirk Pitt, is often compared to the Man of Bronze. Lester Dent, who wrote Doc Savage and The Avenger as Kenneth Robeson, once penned an essay on how to crank out pulps The Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot and while Cussler may not have followed it precisely he didn't stray far as he churned out formulaic but best-selling underwater adventures. [Though, the one way in which he did drift mattered a lot when I read this Dirk Pitt adventure after the author died last week: it is 627 pages, or the length of four of Doc's adventures.] The two heroes share an aptitude with gadgetry, a cast of sidekicks, diabolical opponents and saintly senses of right and wrong. But where Doc's Fabulous Five were characters who brought unique skills to the tales and provided some comic relief, Dirk Pitt ended up with a character, Al Giordano, named for Cussler's best friend, a wife who's a US Congresswoman, a son named Dirk, not unlike the Dirk Cussler who ended up co-authoring the books, and his twin sister. It all gets a tad incestuous.

That said, if you are in a beach or airplane reading mood and willing to suspend all disbelief, the Cusslers do provide an action-packed story with just enough history and scenic background to make you feel like it's not a totally disposable read. This entry begins with pirates attacking a Roman ship in the 4th century, mixes in a search for Lord Kitchener's lost diary, adds Muslim terrorists, hops over to archaelogical thievery in Israel and ends with the discovery on ancient paraphernalia connected to the Christ. you can't say you didn't get your money's worth. Of course, I found my copy at the Thrift Store for a quarter...


(Reviewed:)

Grade: (C)


Websites:

See also:

Thrillers
Clive Cussler Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Clive Cussler
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Clive Cussler (IMDB)
    -AUTHOR SITE: Clive Cussler Books
    -AUTHOR SITE: Numa.net
    -ARTICLE: The battle of Sahara: how Matthew McConaughey and Clive Cussler lost $105 million in the desert: Sahara was meant to be Matthew McConaughey’s answer to Indiana Jones, and a rich mogul’s dream project. But its author had other ideas (Ed Power, 2 March 2020, The Telegraph)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler, best-selling adventure writer who sought real-life thrills, dies at 88 (Hillel Italie, Feb. 26, 2020, Washington Post)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler (1931-2020) (Chris Schluep, February 27, 2020, Amazon Book Review)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler, Best-Selling Author and Adventurer, Is Dead at 88 (Robert D. McFadden, Feb. 26, 2020, NY Times)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler, bestselling adventure novelist, dies aged 88 (Sian Cain, 26 Feb 2020, The Guardian)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler obituary (Michael Carlson, 27 Feb 2020, The Guardian)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler, best-selling author behind Dirk Pitt adventure novels, dead at 88 (Peter Sblendorio, 2/26/20, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler Dies: ‘Sahara’, ‘Raise The Titanic’ Novelist Was 88 (Greg Evans, February 26, 2020, deadline)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler, prolific author and sea explorer, dead at 88 (Leah Asmelash, 2/26/20, CNN)
    -OBIT: Clive Cussler, prolific adventure novelist and creator of Dirk Pitt, is dead at 88 (Barbara VanDenburgh, 2/26/20, USA TODAY)
    -ARTICLE: Clive Cussler's courtroom battle : Clive Cussler's courtroom battle -- ''Sahara'' has the novelist tied up in legal drama (Benjamin Svetkey, March 16, 2007, Entertainment Weekly)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: The techno-pulp of Clive Cussler (Michael R. Brown, ThePulpNet)
    -PROFILE: Non Stop Adventure: Clive Cussler (Bob Minzesheimer, Feb 26, 2015, Publishers Weekly)
By himself, he wrote 17 Dirk Pitt novels, starting with The Mediterranean Caper in 1973. About 15 years ago, Cussler says, his then-publisher, Simon and Schuster, suggested working with coauthors to publish more frequently. If some dismiss that as an assembly-line approach to commercial fiction, Cussler “doesn’t give a damn. I never had a highfalutin view of what I write. It’s a job. I entertain my readers. I get up in the morning and I start typing.”

    -ESSAY: In defense of Clive Cussler (MIRIAM FRANCISCO, 3/18/19, Michigan Daily)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: 'Black Wind': The Author as Superhero (Mark Schone, Dec. 26, 2004, NY Times Book Review)
    -ESSAY: How to Write Epic Best Sellers: A Clive Cussler Review (Ruby Peru, 12/13/19)
    -ESSAY: Doc Savage and Dirk Pitt (Raritania)
    -PROFILE: For Clive Cussler and son, writing is a family affair (Bob Burgdorfer, 11/30/10, , Reuters)
    -ARCHIVES: Clive Cussler (AP)
    -INTERVIEW: The Clive Cussler Adventures: A Critical Review by Steven Philip Jones (Jeff Ayers, 6/30/14, The Big Thrill)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVE: Clive Cussler (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVE: Clive Cussler (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Crescent Dawn by Clive and Dirk Cussler (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Crescent Dawn (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Crescent Dawn (Elliot's Blog)
    -REVIEW: of Crescent Dawn (The Book Shelf, My Book Blog)
    -REVIEW: of Crescent Dawn (Donna Feyen, More than a Review)
    -REVIEW: of Crescent Dawn (Joe Beernink)
    -REVIEW: of Crescent Dawn (Bookreporter)
    -REVIEW: of Pacific Vortex! By Clive Cussler (Donna Feyen, More than a Review)
    -REVIEW: of Night Probe by Clive Cussler (Brittani, Hope Faith Books)
    -REVIEW: of Iceberg by Clive Cussler (Casey Carlisle, Stroking Fire)
    -REVIEW: of Celtic Empire (Real Book Spy)
    -REVIEW: of The Titanic Secret (Jeff Ayers, AP)
    -REVIEW: of Titanic Secret (Suspense Magazine)
    -REVIEW: of Titanic Secret (Red Carpet Crash)
    -REVIEW: of Shock Wave (Elliot's Blog)
    -REVIEW: of The Jungle by Clive Cussler with Jack du Brul (2011) (Elliot's Blog)
    -REVIEW: of The Gray Ghost by Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell (DAVID CRANMER, Criminal Element)
    -REVIEW: of Pirhana by Clive Cussler (AP)
    -REVIEW: of The Romanov Ransom by Clive Cussler & Robin Burcell (Genre Minx)
    -REVIEW: of Romanov Ransom (Entertainment Journal)
    -REVIEW: of The Sea Hunters II by Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo (Edward Morris, BookPage)
    -REVIEW: of POLAR SHIFT by Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos (Pulp Fiction Reviews)
    -REVIEW: of The Oracle (A Sam and Remi Fargo Adventure) (Michael J. McCann, NY Journal of Books)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVE: Clive Cussler Films (Roger Ebert)
    -ESSAY: Lester Dent: the Man Behind Doc Savage (Michael Mallory, Mystery Scene)
    -ESSAY: The Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot (Lester Dent, 1936 Writer's Digest Yearbook)
    -ESSAY: A (Black) Gat in the Hand (Will Murray on Doc Savage, August 19th, 2019, Black Gate)

Book-related and General Links: